Retail, CPG and Logistics
What are the benefits of using real-time data in trade spend analysis?
In today’s highly competitive market environment, businesses have to rely on effective promotion strategies to attract customers and stay competitive. Trade spend analysis plays a key role in this, helping businesses understand how much they are investing in promotions and how effective they are in driving sales. Real-time data analytics has revolutionised how companies manage and analyse their trade spends, helping them be more responsive and optimise their spend ROI for optimised trade promotion management.
Data-driven strategies in trade spend analysis
Trade spend analysis involves tracking and evaluating all promotional investments. A data-driven approach is critical to maximise their impact and stay competitive, especially in highly competitive industries like consumer goods, retail, and logistics. The three core strategies many businesses use to facilitate data-driven decision-making in trade spend analysis include:
- Using historical data to identify trends in past performance and use those insights for planning and forecasting, which often lacks the agility to adapt to real-time market shifts.
- Using predictive modelling to forecast future outcomes and make more informed decisions during trade promotions management, but it still relies on past data.
- Incorporating real-time data to add a layer of agility and responsiveness in spend analysis, which can help businesses monitor and adjust their strategies instantly in response to changing market conditions.
While historical data and predictive models can be useful, they can suffer from delays and lack of flexibility. As the competition continues to intensify, companies have to rely on real-time analytics to make faster, smarter decisions and adapt on the fly.
Benefits of using real-time data in trade spend analysis
Incorporating real-time data into trade spend analysis offers many advantages, helping businesses shift away from traditional methods and bringing real-time insights into the picture to provide more precise control of their promotional investments. The key advantages real-time data analytics offer include:
Improved decision-making
One of the biggest advantages of using real-time data is that it empowers businesses to make quicker, more informed decisions. Rather than having to wait till the end of the promotion to evaluate its performance, companies can assess how it is performing in real time and decide whether to continue, modify, or halt the campaign. Such a fast decision-making process ensures businesses remain responsive to the market dynamics.
Enhanced ROI
Another primary benefit of real-time data analytics is the role it plays in optimising spending. With instant insights, businesses are in a better position to identify promotions that are struggling or yielding the best results and optimise resource allocation accordingly. This results in better ROI by ensuring the promotional investment in areas that deliver the most value.
Increased agility
Contemporary market conditions are changing rapidly with evolving customer expectations and technological innovations. Incorporating real-time data in trade spend analysis allows companies to respond to these changes and fine-tune their promotions on the fly.
Better forecasting and planning
Real-time analytics also improve future planning and forecasting through up-to-date insights into the performance of promotional campaigns and customers' responses to them. These offer a clearer picture of the upcoming trends and market trends, helping businesses refine their trade spending strategies for more effective budget allocation, trade promotions management, and campaign execution.
Reduced waste and overspending
Traditional trade spend analysis methods often lead to prolonged underperforming promotions that waste resources. Real-time data mitigates this risk by helping companies identify ineffective promotions quickly and modify or halt them before they drain unnecessary resources with no returns. This not only helps avoid wasted resources but also ensures fund allocation to the promotions that are delivering results.
These benefits of real-time data analytics also play a crucial role in trade promotions management, helping businesses align their promotional investments with business objectives, resulting in more effective campaigns, faster adaption to market changes, and better resource management.
How can Infosys BPM help optimise trade spend analysis?
Real-time data analytics have fundamentally changed the way businesses approach trade spend analysis, helping them make smarter decisions, improve forecasting, and be more agile when responding to market shifts. Infosys BPM trade promotions management services offer cutting-edge solutions that allow businesses to run successful trade promotions while increasing agility and efficiency. With services ranging from business process consulting and managed trade promotions to technology consulting and implementation and analytics advisory services, Infosys BPM can help you integrate real-time data in trade spend analysis and trade promotions management for improved efficiency, enhanced customer experience, and increased effectiveness.